Slideshare uses cookies to improve functionality and performance, and to provide you with relevant advertising. If you continue browsing the site, you agree to the use of cookies on this website. See our User Agreement and Privacy Policy.

Slideshare uses cookies to improve functionality and performance, and to provide you with relevant advertising. If you continue browsing the site, you agree to the use of cookies on this website. See our Privacy Policy and User Agreement for details.

BlogHer Goes to Washington

In December 2009 Elisa Camahort Page and Erin Kotecki Vest from BlogHer, went to Washington DC to present research data and compelling stories about women online. How, outside the political echo chamber, women of all ideological stripes care about the issues and are having civil debates about them on BlogHer.com and across the BlogHer Network.

BlogHer Goes to Washington

Women and Social Media A
look at the Web’s most influential user… and her motivations Elisa Camahort Page Co-founder and COO Erin Kotecki Vest Political Director 1

Women are Power Users of
Social Media The question: Do you participate in the social media space at least weekly? 42 million American women Equals are active in social media every week. U.S. women online= 79 million 2 Source: 2009 Women and Social Media Survey by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners.

What are Woman Using Online?
75% 31.5 million 55% 23 million 40% 16.8 million 16% 6.7 million (e.g. Twitter) (e.g. Facebook, MySpace) * Activities are not mutually exclusive 3 Source: 2009 Women and Social Media Survey by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners.

Women: The Bloggier the Better
Women who blog are significantly more active across all forms of social media: • 80% read daily or 2-3x/week • 57% blog daily or 2-3x/week • >80% use social networks (1/3 of social network users do no other social media activities weekly) • 35% do status updating • Leading edge of new trends (25% “strongly applies to me”) • Most tech savvy segment (30% “strongly applies to me”) 4 Source: 2009 Women and Social Media Survey by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners.

Women: The Trust Factor We
trust what we use, and we use what we trust • Whether we are active in social media or not, we trust friends first • “Active” social media users trust every single social media source more than they trust every single traditional media source • Those are are not active social media users trust every single traditional media source more than they trust every single social media source 5 Source: 2009 Women and Social Media Survey by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners.

Women: Talking about Politics and
the Economy • Number one most-trafficked post on BlogHer.com in 2008 was about: The presidency* • Number of top ten posts most-trafficked posts on BlogHer.com in 2008 about politics or the economy: Seven • Number of blogs by women about politics listed in BlogHer's directory of 30,000 blogs across 24 topics: January 2007: 379 October 2008: 2,664 10 Source: BlogHer.com and BlogHer Network search

What do Women Want from
Politicians? Talk with us directly, and let us participate • The technology exists, leverage it – "If you truly want to reach women, moms particularly, you have to come to them, especially online. By only doing it "your way," i.e., on your own Web sites, you are doing your campaign a disservice.” – "Not all women are mothers or married. Reach out to single women and women without children as well." – “It’s important for the campaigns to reach out to women, but not by stereotyping them or a “marketing” gimmick.” • We want to hear directly from candidates – “It does no good to hear information from third-party sources.” – “It’s irrelevant what they [the media] think. I want to hear the candidates and decide for myself!” – “I'm sure this is a terrifying thought to the candidates, but technology has enabled us to actually have a conversation. Let's have that conversation.” 11 Source: 2007 BlogHer.com survey of voters about how to cover 2008 Election.

"I'm a mother. I'm a
writer. I'm a taxpayer. I'm a citizen. I'm a member of corporate America. I'm a recycler. I'm a daughter. I'm a consumer. I understand needing to break people into demographics when you're trying to get messages out in a short amount of time, but the candidate who stops treating women as [having just] one facet of their personalities will make a lot of inroads with BlogHers - I'm sure of that, regardless of political affiliation.” ~ Rita Arens, Surrender Dorothy 12